[No surviving envelope]
Thank you for your letter of the 13th. HkfCheetham, Revd Eric;a9.1 not yet recovered; vicar gone away for ten days, so it might be a good time to search his drawers, but perhaps he has taken it with him. I am glad to hear that you have had sun and occasional warmth in spite of the tramontana;2 and I am glad that you are having a street suit (jacket and skirt?) made, but are there good tailors in Rome? and are you acquiring any evening dresses? AndHale, Emilyhealth, physical and mental;w6her teeth;a9 I am sorry to hear of more teeth as well as doctor – though you had notified me of a broken one – and is there a dentist in Rome? You have had very bad luck in that way.
ITime & TideTSE's contributions prove controversial;a4 thought myself, afterwards, that the last paragraph of the letter you mention was a little heavy; and if I could, I would have excised it, because it rather spoils the delicate reference to Mae West, with which the letter should have ended.3 The trouble is that in a busy life one has not the time to perpend such a letter thoroughly. I thoroughly enjoyed the correspondence and have the most friendly feelings towards Rebecca – but my high spirits got the better of me. They often do. The older I get, the less dignified I become, and it’s no use worrying now. ButMilne, Alan Alexander ('A. A.')controversy with TSE over pacifism;a1 I am getting a little tired of Mr. Milne, and hope to close the matter with a brief letter merely summing up the points of difference. IMurder in the Cathedraluncertainties over title;a6 assure you, I have not decided on a title for my play – because it does not yet seem to merit one – but I am very seriously considering the Archbishop Murder Case, which describes it exactly – I have not yet consulted Doone about it. GeoffreyFaber, Geoffreyfavours 'The Archbishop Murder Case';d1 likes the title – it’s my own idea too – but it is ambiguous, because people may think it is about Laud.4 Another title is, Who Murdered the Archbishop? because one of the murderers is to ask that question at the end. The play is VERY serious, because it deals with the transformation of a great archbishop into a Saint. For Canterbury, I think of calling it The Wailing Women,5 as the Temptation of St. Thomas sounds rather flat, I think, and I am not competing with Flaubert.6 But I wish I could have taken more time over that letter.
Itravels, trips and plansEH's 1934–5 year in Europe;b4TSE recommends Siena;c9 shall have the pixtures posted tomorrow, to reach you in Rome. So you are going back to Florence for a month – to stay? or will you travel? You ought to see Siena, but perhaps you have been there before. WillWare, Mary Leepossibly in Florence;b3 Miss Ware be in Florence, that would be a comfort to you I fancy. ILee, Vernondeath in Florence noted;a1 see Vernon Lee just died in Florence at an advanced age.7 I do hope that Florence will suit you better than Rome, I think very likely it will. Do you take Sedobrol regularly, or only on bad nights? And does a bad night come even with Sedobrol, or do you take Sedobrol when a bad night comes?
MrsPlunket Greene, Gwendolenapologises for strange evening;a3. Plunket Greene has written to apologise for being very tired the night I came, and for her daughter being so nervous in company that she has to drink to keep her courage up. I have replied to soothe them, but they are two very ill women. FatherD'Arcy, Fr Martinlent galoshes;a6 D’Arcy is off to New York wearing my goloshes [sic] which I have lent him. TomorrowChurch Literature AssociationBook Committee meeting;a4 afternoon a meeting of the Working Committee of the Standing Committee of the Book Committee, andMorleys, thetake TSE to Evelyn Prentice and Laurel & Hardy;d7 then go to a film with the Morleys. OttolineMorrell, Lady Ottoline;e8 has been heard from at Government House, Bombay. TheHutchinson, St. Johnmade KC;a4 Hutchinsons have ignored me for months: I see that Jack has just been made a K.C.8 AndMurder in the CathedralTSE on writing;a4 CAN I finish Act I by Monday?
Yes, that humour was heavy.
1.Handkerchief.
2.Northerly winter wind from the Alps and Apennines, driving down the west coast of Italy.
3.See TSE’s letter to the editor, Time & Tide, 2 Feb. 1935), 490: Letters 7, 490–2. The paragraph to which EH objected runs (as published in Time & Tide): ‘I should like to dissociate myself from the “Eliot legend” which Miss West (still writing, I suppose, under circumstances of unusual difficulty) accuses me of “gratuitously” trying to “bolster up”. As for the “powerful flood of suggestion that has been turned on us in England during the last twenty years”, I admire Miss West as a sort of Mount Ararat, the first to rear her head from the subsiding waters. But perhaps Miss West was never submerged at all: in which case I admire her still more as “that most charming and contented ornament” of the Ark, Mrs Noah.’
4.I. A. Richards (30 Jan.) interpreted TSE’s mention of ‘The Archbishop Murder Case’ as indicating that TSE was engaged on a work about William Laud (b. 1573), Archbishop of Canterbury and leader of the High Anglican party, who was executed for treason on 10 Jan. 1645. Laud was a passionate advocate for the powers and rights of the established Church in harmony with the monarchy. He was opposed to Puritanism and nonconformism, insisting that ecclesiastical uniformity was the necessary correlative of order in the state. His conviction as to the catholicity of the Church of England led to suspicions of popery. TSE said of Richard Hooker, in Varieties of Metaphysical Poetry, 164: ‘it is no wonder that before he joined the Church of Rome he found the church of Archbishop Laud the most sympathetic, of Laud who took his stand for the liturgy and “the beauty of holiness”’.
5.Jeremiah 9: 17–20.
6.See Gustave Flaubert, La Tentation de saint Antoine (1874).
7.TheLee, Vernon British writer Vernon Lee, pseud. of Violet Paget (b. 1856), died on 13 Feb. 1935.
8.King’s Counsel: an honorific conferred by the Crown on a lawyer of proven standing.
4.RevdCheetham, Revd Eric Eric Cheetham (1892–1957): vicar of St Stephen’s Church, Gloucester Road, London, 1929–56 – ‘a fine ecclesiastical showman’, as E. W. F. Tomlin dubbed him. TSE’s landlord and friend at presbytery-houses in S. Kensington, 1934–9. See Letters 7, 34–8.
3.MartinD'Arcy, Fr Martin D’Arcy (1888–1976), Jesuit priest and theologian: see Biographical Register.
11.GeoffreyFaber, Geoffrey Faber (1889–1961), publisher and poet: see Biographical Register.
7.TheLee, Vernon British writer Vernon Lee, pseud. of Violet Paget (b. 1856), died on 13 Feb. 1935.
4.LadyMorrell, Lady Ottoline Ottoline Morrell (1873–1938), hostess and patron: see Biographical Register.
3.GwendolenPlunket Greene, Gwendolen Plunket Greene (1878–1959), younger daughter of the composer Hubert Parry, was married to the Irish baritone Harry Plunket Greene (1865–1936); they had two sons and a daughter, but had separated in 1920.
3.MaryWare, Mary Lee Lee Ware (1858–1937), independently wealthy Bostonian, friend and landlady of EH at 41 Brimmer Street: see Biographical Register.